As promised, the FCC today voted to impose a shot clock aimed at speeding up municipal approval for the placing of wireless towers. According to an FCC news release (warning: pdf link), the new agency rules impose a 90 day limit to states and municipalities to approve or deny collocation (tower sharing) requests, and 150 day limit to act on new tower placement requests.

It’s something the wireless industry has been lobbying for for a while. According to wireless industry lobbyists, (warning: pdf) there’s currently 760 new tower placement applications nationally that have been waiting for approval for at least a year, and 180 applications that have been waiting at least three years (though the industry has been known to play up government dysfunction for effect). Municipalities are expected to challenge the ruling in the courts over fears that they’d be ceding too much state zoning control to Uncle Sam.

Link to the original article…